


The Uncertainty Principle

by cenotaphs



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M, also loki and valkyrie and heindall and all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 00:00:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15424539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cenotaphs/pseuds/cenotaphs
Summary: On the way to earth, Thor gets more comfortable with his new duties as king, his remaining people, and Bruce Banner. All of which will be threatened once their ship reaches its destination.





	The Uncertainty Principle

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution to the post-Ragnarok-but-IW-doesn't-happen-because-screw-it category of fics. It's mostly just me enjoying the ways these two seeming-opposites could actually relate to each other. (Though, as a note, I started writing this because I wanted to write my version of a fic where they reach earth and deal with the Accords and Ross and the two-years-dead-Bruce-rumors and whatnot, so this story won't end until that happens. Probably six or seven chapters? The rating might very well go up, consider yourselves warned.)
> 
> I'm so pleased about the existence of this pairing. This is my first attempt at writing them, so criticize away.

“So you see, your highness, despite the fact that Vangmar actually made the shirt, it obviously ought to belong to my son.”

It was impressive how unimpressive space travel seemed after the second month or so.

Thor was spoiled, of course. Used to traveling via bifrost, he had never been burdened with dealing with the physical distance between realms. He could contemplate Midgard intently enough and find himself whooshed away there. But now…

Six months. That was Heimdall’s prediction to reach earth. Six actual entire months of life, trapped with the same people, the same stale air, inside a hollow ball hurtling through an endless dark abyss. 

He didn’t envy those who traveled between the stars all their lives. It was just  _ super _ overrated.

It gave him time and room to stumble his way into becoming a king, though. That was something. 

“--must see how absurd his claim is. I sewed that shirt from linens  _ I _ found, meticulously to fit my own measurements. It’s not my fault his useless son is tearing through his own clothes--”

It wasn’t  _ much  _ of something: turned out that a ship full of the remnants of Asgard tended towards irritating mischief weeks into the hurtling through dark abysses thing. Being king meant refereeing arguments, investigating complaints, and trying to keep the spirits of his decimated people running somewhere north of nil. As time passed and their supplies started to dwindle, that was an even harder job.

“--and furthermore, I would argue that he has an  _ obligation  _ to supply the rest of us with the fruits of his talents, given the circumstances in which we’re living.”

Thor sat back on his makeshift throne. “Cut the shirt in half.” 

Both the snippy men in front of him stared at him blankly. 

Thor waved a hand, a gesture he only realized afterward resembled the Grandmaster more than, say, Odin. “In half. That’s all.” 

The man acting as his makeshift guard in his makeshift command center (where sat his makeshift throne) ushered the two complainants out as Thor sagged back against his chair and heaved a sigh worthy of a king. 

“You realize you can’t keep using the ‘cut it in half’ ruling for every problem, right?”

He waved his hand again, this time deliberate in its Grandmasterness. He didn’t look back, used to the slow drawl of amused criticism that came from behind him. 

Hilde would have been a better guard than his current makeshift guard, if only she’d stop actively trying to make herself vomit every time he brought it up to her. (She was always hanging around anyway, so he had no idea what her problem was in the first place.) Instead she contented herself with judging his every move.

“It’ll be fine. Didn’t he say it was a baby in the original story? I haven’t had to kill a baby yet. I’m doing  _ great _ .” 

“He said it was an allegory, your worship. You’re not allegoring.”

“I don’t remember that part.” Thor perked up, stretching from his bored slouch and pushing out of the chair. Throne. Whatever. “We should go ask him, is that what you...yes. Yes, we should. Outstanding.”

Hilde only smirked from her own chair, which was less grand than his, of course. “Running from responsibility again.”

“ _ This?  _ This is not responsibility. This is tedious. Why these people can’t just get along…” He strode towards the rear door without a word towards the front doors. His guard knew him well enough by then to tell any other complainants to try again in a few hours. 

Despite her mild argument, Hilde’s footsteps came pattering quick behind him as she caught up. “I think you’ll find tediousness comes with the job.” 

Thor was very sure at this point that she was right, but since he was finally up and moving again - he must have spent a solid  _ hour  _ in that throne room,  _ honestly _ \- he chose not to debate the issue. 

A month ago he might have reminded her that she was the last living Valkyrie, and that she was owning up to her uniform and her legacy even worse than he was. But he knew better by now than to bring that up. 

Mostly. 

It was easier to smile and greet his passing people now that he was on his way somewhere. Easier to be a king when being a king meant doling out calm greetings and confident certainty instead of sitting on his duff listening to his once proud race argue about clothing. 

He came to a branch in the corridor and hesitated, only realizing then how long it had been since he’d taken this route.

Hilde pushed past him with a smirk. “Allow me to lead, your honorableness. No doubt he’s holed up in the infirmary.”

_ We have an infirmary?  _ Thor wasn’t stupid enough to ask out loud. He strode behind her, barely missing a beat. Of course they had an infirmary.

Hilde navigated the corridors of the ship with much more ease than Thor, who tended to - when he could, when his life wasn’t  _ tedious _ \- stumble around discovering things instead of going in active search for something.

That was part of the reason why he hadn’t seen Bruce in...quite a few days. 

Hilde stopped at a door, well marked with the rune of the healers scratched on the wall in some dark ink, and wider than most they’d passed. She peered in, and smirked back at Thor as he caught up. 

He looked in over her shoulder, curious, and though he’d never admit it to anyone it took him a good moment to realize that it was his timid Midgardian friend he was watching. 

Bruce seemed...different. Different than on Sakaar, definitely, but even considering their brief times Avenging together…

Well, that wasn’t fair. Bruce himself never got to Avenge anything. Still, he seemed different as Thor watched him move around the clean, wide space of the infirmary. He was tending a patient, a younger woman Thor was sure he’d passed in the corridors before. He spoke to her as he moved, his voice low and calm and comforting, not even loud enough to reach Thor’s ears. 

He moved with none of the frenetic energy of Sakaar, or the meekness and constant self-doubt of earth. His hair was starting to regrow the rumpled curls he’d had when Thor first met him, but he was dressed more in the style of Asgardians: a simple tunic and trousers, muted in color but well-tended.

He even carried himself differently, holding himself with shoulders back, eyed lifted, centered and confident in his movements. 

Thor watched him for a long moment, pleased but somewhat disconcerted: how long had it actually been since he’d last spoken to Bruce? As one of his few actual friends on the ship, it didn’t make sense to him not to have seen Bruce around, even in passing.

Bruce gathered some supplies from around the room as Thor and Hilde watched from the doorway. As he brought his collection back to his young patient, his gaze shifted to his two new  visitors for an instant before returning to the woman waiting for him. Again he spoke, calm and low, voice not carrying enough to reach Thor. 

His patient smiled, took the handful of things he offered her, and stood from the small cot she’d been sitting on. She reached out with her free hand and touched his arm lightly, murmuring back, before turning to leave. She was a good four inches taller than him, Thor noted with his first glimmer of amusement all day.

Her eyes got wide when she saw Thor in the doorway, but with a quick, bashful bow of her head she hurried past him and Hilde. 

Bruce turned his focus to them once she was gone, smiling. “King Thor,” he greeted.

Thor grinned back at him, moving into the room and looking around in interest. “Doctor Banner.” 

“You here to inspect the place?”

“He’s here to inspect you, little guy.” 

Thor glanced back at Hilde.

She wagged her eyebrows at him and thumped a fist lightly against the doorway. “Give me a shout if you need a guide to get back to your rooms, your majesticness.” And with that she was gone, ducking back into the corridor before he could sputter some lie about knowing this ship far better than...well, it would have been an embarrassing lie, really. 

He turned back to Banner with a can-you-even-believe roll of his eyes. “Anyway. You’ve...you seem to be settled in.” 

A glow of amusement came and went across Bruce’s face, but he simply nodded and gestured at the room around them. “This has been good.” 

“I wasn’t aware that you were this type of doctor. I assumed your title came from much the same field as Jane Foster’s.”

“It does.” Bruce got back to work, moving to straighten the supply stores he’d disrupted for his patient. “But for my bio-engineering PhD I took a core of medical classes. And I’ve done this...this kind of work, before.” His smile wavered for a moment. “I can manage as a general physician well enough, but for anything more complex it’s a good thing there are a couple of real healers on the ship.” 

_ Are there?  _ Again, not stupid enough to say that out loud, but Thor did make a quick mental note to pay more attention to...everything, all the things not put right in front of him for him him to rule over. Honestly, he was doing a pretty crap job at kinging, considering he was focused on it constantly.

“They’ve been giving me Asgardian physiology lessons where they can, since I cover the shifts they can’t,” Bruce went on after a moment. “But for the most part they’re the ones keeping your people alive.”

“I sense you’re being a bit too modest. Your last young patient seemed quite content with you.” 

Bruce smiled over at him, still relaxed. Despite his modesty, he was not vearing as far into self-deprecation as Thor had noted was usual for him. “General work so far. When she actually gives birth, she’ll want one of the others.”

Thor looked back towards the door, as though the long-departed woman might still be in sight. 

“Birth?” His stomach seemed to twist inside of him, for reasons he wasn’t sure of. He found himself standing a little straighter, wanting to grin without knowing why. “Really?”

Bruce’s answering smile - and if Thor were asked to describe it he could only have called it  _ kind  _ \- grew wider. “That’s right. You may have lost too many of your people, Thor, but the ones you saved won’t be the last remnants. They are fully alive and continuing. Asgard will live on.”

Thor had to swallow down a thickness in his throat. He peered back at the door again, uselessly, and knew when he saw that young woman next he was going to just hug the crap out of her. When he looked back at Bruce his smile felt so wide across his face it almost hurt. 

These were his people. Diminished as they were, sniping over supplies or what have you, they were Asgard. And they were continuing.

Bruce chuckled at his expression. “You okay?”

“I’ll be cutting no more babies in half,” Thor answered happily.

Bruce blinked but shrugged, good-natured to the last. “Seems like a good place for a king to start.”

 

* * *

 

When Thor left the infirmary that day, he found that he instantly missed Bruce’s kind, soft smiles and his soothing manner. A far cry from the nervous mess he’d been on Sakaar, but circumstances had to be taken into account.

Bruce seemed to be thriving on this ship, in the enforced closeness and stagnation of space travel that was chafing at Thor so badly. It was good for Bruce, which in turn was good for Thor to witness. 

And so Thor went back, after a few days solidly devoted to charting routes and dealing with supply shortages and resolving endless disputes.

“King Thor,” came Bruce’s greeting, same as before. 

“Doctor Banner,” he replied, striding in and returning Bruce’s smile. Oddly he could already feel the I’m-a-pretend-king-and-my-people-are-doomed-for-having-to-suffer-me tension he always carried lately easing from his shoulders. 

No one else was in the infirmary this time, which he figured was a good sign. How much injury could people deal out to themselves floating through space in a can, after all? 

“What can I do for you?”

Thor moved in, dropping on the nearest empty cot. It creaked under him, perhaps not yet used to the full weight of a tired Asgardian. 

He had no answer to give, really. This was a purely selfish use of his time, and that was something he didn’t care to think about, much less admit out loud. He was king, he had to focus on being king. 

It was draining, though, when he thought about it. These would always be his duties now, this would always be his role. And if the job was difficult on this ship, with a few hundred subjects and no real outside concerns save crashing, how hard would it be when they were on terra firma again?

When he didn’t reply, Bruce approached him. “Maybe a quick check-up? Would be a shame if the king got sick, wouldn’t it?”

It was as good an excuse as any, so Thor shrugged his approval. The line of Odin was strong, and he had rarely taken ill or been badly hurt in all his long generations of life. He tended to regard healers with a kind of patronising amusement. 

Bruce’s smile tilted at one side, as if he knew all those things himself and was humoring Thor for humoring him. Or something. It was a nice expression, Thor found himself thinking as Bruce came to him and motioned for him to lift his arm. It was amused without being directed outward. Without being cruel to anyone.

He held out his arm dutifully, but was still somehow surprised when Bruce reached out, when a warm hand latched around his wrist. Bruce tugged his arm, fingers resting against the inside of his wrist. 

It took Thor a few seconds longer than he’d care to admit to figure out that Bruce was checking his pulse. 

His throat felt dry suddenly, so he swallowed. Since Bruce was watching what he was doing Thor felt safer openly studying him, his face and his growing hair and the lines around his eyes. He was different, Thor found himself thinking again. He had settled in and Thor had somehow missed it.

He studied Bruce. “You aren’t around much, are you?”

Bruce looked up at him, head tilting just a bit to the side. “I’m kind of always around. Consequence of the whole spaceship thing.” 

Thor raised his eyebrows. 

Bruce had the decency to drop the faint sarcasm. He looked down at Thor’s wrist, letting a few seconds tick by in silence. 

“I don’t go out often.” 

“I thought the other day about how long it’s been since we spoke.” 

Bruce nodded. “At first this was all just a lot to take in.” He gestured with his free hand aimlessly. “Space, and aliens. And how much I’ve seen that I never would have believed even a year ago.” 

Thor flexed his hand, caught in Banner’s easy grip. “At first.” 

“Hang on.” Bruce’s gaze flitted up to Thor’s face, then back down to his arm. 

More silence ticked by. 

Thor wasn’t particularly good with silence; it made his thoughts go funny places. As it did now, when he found himself marveling at the warmth and gentleness of that grasp around his wrist, and then wondered why he should find it interesting at all. 

Humans ran cold, that was all. In his experience humans were a cool and impersonal people. Warm, very warm, at times, but for the most part focused internally and radiating a kind of...shield, maybe, around themselves. Thor had wondered if it was him reading cues wrong, just a cultural difference in body language or behavior. He came to realize, though, that there were very basic differences in how humans related to each other, compared to people of Asgard. 

(That realization had happened because of Jane, right before she broke things off with him. She cited long distances and her inability to tell if her feelings for him could be separated from her general fascination with just the  _ idea  _ of him, the alienness. It had hurt, but he’d pushed it aside. He had never thought he was An Alien, not to her.)

(Thor was, he had come to realize, An Alien to most Midgardians. Vastly underestimated, at least in all the areas where he wasn’t  _ over _ estimated. His power couldn’t be denied, but his intelligence, his age and experience, very much could be. Jane, for all her warm devotion to him, had never taken the time to learn him outside the Alien.) 

(And what an absurd thing to be thinking about right then.) 

After a minute or two Bruce straightened, releasing his grip. 

Thor drew his arm back, feeling oddly nervous. “Was that the examination, then?”

“I know, it’s not a very exact indicator of health,” Bruce said, an apology in his voice. “The Grandmaster doesn’t seem to have thought over many practical concerns when he was stocking his ships. We don’t have equipment for anything in depth.” 

“So if I were dying you couldn’t tell me?” Thor injected levity into his voice best he could. 

He was rewarded by another small smile. “We’re imprecise, not clueless. Your pulse is a bit fast for an Asgardian, but nothing worrying. Within a standard deviation, factoring in nerves and any recent exertion.”

Thor found himself rubbing at his wrist absently, at the warmth left behind on his skin. 

Bruce drew back another step, a hint of color touching his cheeks. “I could always take a urine sample if you like, but there’s not much I could do with it. You seem fine. You always seem like the pinnacle of health, so. Good job.” 

“Then I will live to king another day. And you are trying to get out of telling me why you’ve been avoiding me.”

Bruce chuckled without much genuine amusement. “I don’t avoid anyone specific. I just tend to spend most of my time in my quarters, or...well, here. I’ve never been a very social person.”

“Bruce.” 

Bruce held up his hands in surrender. Though when he spoke, cheeks going even more pink, he still smiled. “I’m trying. I’ll try harder, if you want my company outside of here.”

“Good. I’m sure Hilde would appreciate it as well.”

“Hilde doesn’t have your manners. She barges in on me whenever she wants.” Bruce’s smile grew. “But I think she gets along better with my other half.”

“I get along with Hulk quite well myself,” Thor admitted to his wrist as he looked down at it. As if a brief touch had left marks he might be able to see.  

“But I can trust you not to actively try and bring him out to play.” 

That brought Thor’s focus back to Bruce. “She isn’t…?”

“No,” Bruce was quick to answer. “She hasn’t done anything to try and wake him up. But she’s disappointed, I think. That I hold him in.” 

Thor considered that. 

Bruce turned and went around to a small counter that held supplies. He neatened a few piles of cloth rags, straightened up things that Thor couldn’t identify but could clearly see didn’t need any straightening. 

“I haven’t told you,” Bruce said suddenly, pointedly not looking in Thor’s direction, “how grateful I am to you. For not pushing harder than you did for Hulk to come to the fight with your sister.” 

“I pushed pretty hard,” Thor remembered.

“Not as hard as you could have. You know what it takes to bring him out, and you could have used that.” Bruce studied a pile of bandages intently. “Others have.” 

“Natasha.” Thor remembered vividly, after the battle with Ultron when they were gathering together again. When the Widow had reported that Hulk had gone, and that was the last they heard of Bruce for the two years until Sakaar. 

She had confessed to them, matter-of-factly, about how she had brought Hulk into play. At the time Thor had understood her perfectly, had seen nothing wrong with her decision to activate a weapon that they were badly in need of. 

Now, watching Bruce hunch in on himself the way he hadn’t been since Earth, Thor felt guilty about that understanding. 

Bruce sighed after a moment. “Nat is who she is, and I am who I am.” 

“You were together.”

“In a way. I thought we could be good for each other. But now I know better.” Bruce glanced towards Thor, eyes never lifting to his face. “She’ll never respect me. And I’ll never trust her.”

_ Good, _ came a clear, strong, unwanted voice in Thor’s head. 

And. Okay. That was something he’d have to sort out sometime. 

He pushed off the cot, moving slowly towards Bruce. “My respect for you was rewarded. Pity she didn’t realize how hers might have been as well.” 

Bruce turned, giving up his aimless busywork and leaning his back against the counter that held those already-neat supplies. He watched Thor’s approach, his expression guarded. “Then I might not be here, in space, having fought a living goddess and her undead minions. Even by Avenger standards, that’s pretty cool. And hell, by the standards of earth science I could win a Nobel writing about all this.” 

Thor humphed, wondering inexplicably whether Jane would find him more or less fascinating now that he was an endangered species. 

He understood aspects of ‘science’, as the Midgardians classified it, that Jane would never know. That Bruce would never know. Earth’s most honored scientists were only just discovering things that Asgardians were taught in school. Things so many other planets and peoples took for granted. Still, Thor couldn’t help but respect the search for knowledge that drove Jane. That drove Bruce.

“Is that your plan, when we reach Earth?” Thor studied Bruce, keeping his own expression open and guileless. “Papers and prizes?”

A crease of disgust crept over Bruce’s features. “My plan is to do whatever I can to help these people find a new home. I don’t think the violent and unnatural destruction of a planet should be reduced to journals. And it definitely shouldn’t be awarded medals.” 

Thor smiled, finally close enough to reach out, to rest a hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “Then my trust in you is rewarded yet again. Since Natasha isn’t here for me to convince, I’ll have to try my luck with you: you ought to trust yourself more. In whatever form you take.” 

Bruce laughed, a rattling sound. “That, my friend, is a work in progress.” His smile didn’t fade. “It’s funny, really. I used to think that if Hulk ever took me over for any extended length of time, it could only end with craters in the ground and dead bodies piled up. Instead he found a home, friends. A whole identity of his own. I don’t think I have a choice but to trust him, at least more than I have.”

Despite the smile there was a shadow on Bruce’s face.

“Why does that bother you?” Thor asked, instead of pretending he didn’t notice. 

“Why are we having this kind of conversation? You can’t have come around here wanting to talk out our psyches.” 

“Maybe I did. Maybe it’s the very will of the king that we talk about psychics.” 

Bruce eyed him. “Psyches, and I know you know the difference. Though I will admit that your Clueless Alien schtick is pretty cute sometimes. Even in a place like this, where I’m the only clueless alien around.” 

Thor grinned at that. “Cute? Really?” 

“Oh lord.” Bruce rolled his eyes, a disconcertingly Hilde-esque gesture. But his mouth twitched into a genuine smile. 

Thor basked in it. He couldn’t help it. He was starting to think he’d do some pretty damned silly things in order to earn that smile. “You think I don’t realize this is more distraction to keep from answering--” 

“Ahem.” 

Thor blinked and twisted around, a hot spark of annoyance going through him at the interruption. Annoyance that wasn’t sure whether to fade or strengthen when he saw who was standing there in the doorway. 

Loki had a single eyebrow raised, and a matching smirk tilting one side of his mouth. One of his standard smug expressions: Thor never had the heart to tell him it simply made his face look lopsided. 

His gaze went from Thor to Bruce and back again, smirking all the while. 

Thor cleared his throat after a moment. “Are you ill, or are you hoping one of us will beg you to tell us why you’re here?” 

Okay, apparently his annoyance had opted to strengthen. 

Loki’s brow twitched all the higher. “Your presence is requested in the control room. Heimdall thinks there’s a planet suitable for a supply stop within easy reach.” He said the words to Thor, but after he spoke his gaze switched to Bruce and stayed there. 

Thor had to resist the urge to shift over, to get between them. “I suppose he would know,” he said, though he felt reluctant to go. Still. King, so it wasn’t like he could push the decision off on someone else. 

Instead he simply approached Loki and the door behind him, clamping an arm around Loki’s narrow shoulder when he passed. “Come then, brother, let’s see where this month’s food will be coming from.”

“I’ll stay, thanks.” Loki twisted out of his grasp, graceful at it after years of practice. “Might be coming down with something, really ought to get checked out.” 

Thor stopped moving, turning to him. “Loki.”

Loki met his eyes and gave a single short cough, so obviously fake that he wanted its fakeness to be known. 

Thor frowned, but glanced back at Bruce. 

They weren’t enemies at the moment, Thor and Loki. Though they spent more time avoiding each other than not on this long voyage, it was more due to a general fear of sparking a fight than any actual resentment. At least on Thor’s part it was. 

And he had no reason to suspect that Loki wished Bruce ill, or had any reason to suddenly take interest in him. 

Though thinking about what any sudden interest might be based in brought a strange warmth to Thor’s face. 

He peered at Bruce, who glanced between him and Loki with eyebrows raised before giving Thor a calm nod. 

Thor turned to Loki, eyes narrowed, but responsibility called so he ended up marching out of there without another word. 

He even fought the temptation to stay and listen outside the door, and somehow won.

 

* * *

 

Responsibility won every fight he pitted against it, really. Which was good, because: king. But after weeks and weeks of it there was something about that throne, that audience chamber, these quarreling Asgardians and these endless decisions that was starting to really chafe. 

He felt tired more and more often. Shorter-tempered than was his usual. The ship and everyone in it seemed to be willfully trying to anger him, or at least to test his patience. 

_ Your people are scared,  _ he tried to tell himself now and then, an internal voice of wisdom that sounded an awful lot like Bruce Banner.  _ They don’t know earth, they don’t have any idea what’s in store. They’ve lost everything and they are trusting you.  _

But for some reason that didn’t help. 

They had lost so much that every tiny thing held importance. A shirt, a prefered room, the last sweet ale at supper. These things had become vital, because they were all his people had. 

Still, none of that made it easier to sit on his stupid throne hoping his irritation and tiredness didn’t show on his face, listened to two proud, noble, very much  _ adult  _ Asgardians argue over last night’s queue to use the showers. 

It didn’t help that there wasn’t a single thing in this particular quarrel that he could order to be cut in half. 

Right before Thor could give in to the balling of his fists and the urging of his temper and actually hurl the throne he was sitting on at the men in front of him, the doors behind them opened. 

Hilde came striding in (when had she left?), her expression flattened into its usual state of bemused boredom but her body tense and her steps urgent. 

Hurrying in behind her was Bruce, unable to match her pace or copy her emotion-hiding mask. 

Propriety should have made Thor object to this interruption. After the last nearly three months of nothing at all happening, it didn’t even occur to him that this might be an emergency. 

Not until Hilde strode past the two unfortunate arguers and gestured at Thor sharply. “We need you. Now.” And then “your Highnessness,” as an afterthought.

Thor frowned, but his fists unclenched and he rose to his feet. “What’s wrong?”

Hilde gestured back at Bruce, with the visibly furrowed brow and the pinched mouth. “You have to go with him. It’s urgent.” 

Bruce opened his mouth as if to say something, but his eyes flitted from the back of Hilde to Thor’s face, and he stayed quiet. Worry still pressed at his features, though. 

Thor moved past Hilde, past the two men who’d waited so impatiently for his attention, and up to Bruce. “Well? What’s happening?”

Bruce glanced back over his shoulder, towards Hilde, but sighed quietly and gestured. “Follow me.” 

They moved through the corridors at a pace Thor couldn’t help but feel was far too slow for an emergency. Bruce stayed quiet, though, and there  _ was  _ a kind of urgency in the set of his profile when Thor glanced over at him. 

Bruce led him back and back, down three separate flights of stairs (Thor did know there was more than one level on the ship, he simply hadn’t had reason to venture down so far.) 

And finally Bruce slowed, angling to the left at a fork in the narrower, smaller corridor they were then on. He approached a thin, short door and opened it. At a glance there was nothing inside but darkness. 

Had it been anyone but Bruce - had it even been Hilde herself - Thor might have gotten suspicious. But on the list people who might plan a coup and seek to hide Thor’s body in this distant, silent closet (including, again, Hilde herself, at least if she’d had enough to drink) Bruce Banner was nowhere to be found. 

Bruce gestured through the door. 

Thor stared at him. “I begin to suspect this is no great emergency.” 

“You’re perceptive like that,” Bruce answered easily, without mockery. “Sorry. I didn’t want to present it that way, but Hilde wasn’t taking votes.”

No, she wouldn’t. But then Thor wasn’t exactly furious about it, considering what it had taken him away from. Still, he eyed the space beyond the door - black and small - and didn’t particularly want to go any further. 

Bruce sighed faintly and turned, moving in first. Even he and his tiny Midgardian self had to duck his head a bit to get through the door frame. He seemed to vanish into the blackness. 

But after a moment his voice emerged. “Not scared, are you?”

“Is that an attempt at manipulation?” Thor asked, approaching the door with a smirk. “Because I’ll remind you who my brother is.” 

Bruce’s eyes could be seen, at least, glittering in the dark. “Yeah, I was hoping something more clumsy might slide through your defenses. Just get in here.” 

Thor just got in there, though he damn near had to bend in half to get through. He couldn’t straighten much further than that once he was inside, either. 

“Sit.”

“Sit?”

Bruce didn’t respond. Which, fair enough. Thor couldn’t see a damned thing, but sensory clues told him that this little closet was nothing more than it seemed. A little closet. 

He sat. 

Bruce shifted around him, and suddenly the door was shut and the room was entirely, disconcertingly black. 

Bruce sat, and the room was so small that their legs brushed together. 

Thor shifted within seconds, feeling cramped and confused. “Are you going to tell me--” 

“Shhh.” 

In another few decades, when he’d settled into his kingness properly, he was probably going to bristle at being shushed. For the moment, though, he frowned but obeyed. 

After a few moments trying to make sense of all this, he became aware of a sound. It was constant, low, almost white noise. Familiar, though. He tried to turn his head to hear it better, but it seemed to be coming from all around them. 

Water, he realized. A constant current of water, hollow-sounding, so it must have been going through pipes. Those pipes must have been in the walls above them, and behind, and below. All sides.

“What is that sound?” he asked, and his voice was suddenly softer. 

“For me?” Bruce sounded like he was smiling, that same sad half-smile that was his most common. “It’s Peru. Momón. It’s a tributary of the Río Nanay. There was a time when I was on the run, before I reached Brazil. I ended up spending a few days at this village; there wasn’t even a name for it that I could find on any map afterwards. I brought them food and supplies and they let me shelter for a while. And when I slept, I listened to the flow of the Momón barely a few feet away. It was the best sleep I got in months.” 

Thor sat back, his head dropping lightly against the back wall. He shut his eyes against the darkness, considering. He had never been anywhere Bruce was talking about, of course, but Asgard had held its share of streams and quiet rivers, hidden pools and burbling waterfalls. 

He had never appreciated them. He had grown up far too eager for action to appreciate things like silence and the flow of a river. 

Bruce went on, his voice low and almost distant. “Once I’ve been here long enough, I can almost put myself back there. I can almost feel the dried grass of the mattress under my back, and smell the heavy, wet earth. Hear the insects, so loud in the night. Feel the breeze that made its way in.” He paused, and then sighed. “I had gone years without being found at that point. It would only be weeks after that that Ross...that the men hunting me would find me again. It represents something. When I meditate, that village in Peru is where I try to go.”

Thor wasn’t sure if it was the sound of the water or the hush of Bruce’s voice, but he realized his shoulders had lost their tension. His hands were draped on his thighs, limp and unfisted. His eyes were still closed, needlessly in the darkness but it felt right. 

He let out a slow breath, smiling despite himself. “I went from being a warrior obsessed with battle, to an Avenger, to a king. I learned to stop looking for war, but I don’t suppose I ever learned how to find peace.” 

“Sometimes it’s hiding in closets,” Bruce answered easily. 

Thor huffed an amused breath, then shut up and listened to the unending flow of the water.

“Loki is worried about you. Not that he’ll openly admit it, but.” Bruce shifted, his leg a warm press against Thor’s knee. A grounding. “So is Hilde. So am I.”

“Hilde thinks I spend too much time avoiding my duties,” Thor argued mildly. 

“True. But when do you stop being king?”

Thor frowned, his eyes opening. Bruce was still nothing more than a darker shadow against unending blackness. 

“Even when you run from those audiences, you walk the ship and talk to your people. You visit Heimdall and discuss the route, and the future. You worry. You never shut it off.” 

“How can I? It’s not a job I can leave behind at the end of a day.” 

“No. But you’re allowed to still be Thor, too. Even just now and then.” 

“I don’t…” 

“When’s the last time you sparred with Hilde? Or sat and watched...god, have you even seen them? The vids the Grandmaster collected from...I can’t even imagine. So many different worlds. There are bars on this ship, with alcohol even Hilde thinks is decent. Some of your people have put together a schedule of activities, games, readings, little things that give people something to look forward to. You should join in, let them see the man behind the title. Let yourself see it. You could come here and sit on your ass and just breathe for a while. You should do  _ something _ , Thor. We have another two months on this ship, at the least. You’re already burning yourself out. Take care of yourself so you can be the amazing king we all know you are.” 

Thor peered out at the blackness, considering. “It terrifies me,” he said finally, and those words were somehow easy to say in the darkness. “All of it. Every day, every decision.” 

“That’s how I know you’re going to be great. The worst leaders are the surest ones.”

Bruce was a wise man. Surprising, really: as short a time as Midgardians had to live, some of them still managed to learn so much.

A sudden thought made Thor smile. “I suppose I could delegate some things, now and then.”

“Good! Yes, perfect. That’s a great idea.” 

“And since you are the personal friend of the king, and obviously a fair and wise man, it only seems fitting that you should take my place at those afternoon audiences and hear the complaints of the people.”

There was silence. 

Thor grinned. 

“...I can’t believe I walked right into that.” 

He laughed, sitting up, feeling a thousand times calmer and more at ease than he had been just fifteen minutes ago. “If you decline I suppose Hilde might…”

“Oh, christ. I’m pretty sure her idea of dispute mediation would be lobbing knives at people until they went away.” 

“A good, solid Asgardian method.” 

Bruce laughed. “A few months ago I would have believed that, Shecky.” He hesitated. “Oh. No. Two years, I mean. I suppose. Two years and a few months ago.”

The amusement drained from his voice. 

Thor felt his smile fading in response. He had been moments from getting to his feet and considering this little outing a well-earned reprieve. Instead he sat back, shifting until his knee pressed more firmly against Bruce’s. 

He dropped his head back against the wall, and let the water trickle around them as they both searched for their own kinds of peace. 

 

* * *

It wasn’t until they were out of the closet and heading back down the narrow corridor that Bruce spoke again. 

“There’s a waste treatment tank taking up nearly half of this level. That closet is on the receiving end.” 

Thor blinked, peering down at him. 

Bruce didn’t look over, but his small smile twitched. “I like the irony of finding peace thanks to an endless flow of sewage. Even shit can be soothing.” 

Laughter burst out of Thor, harder and deeper than he’d laughed since setting foot on that ship all those weeks ago. 


End file.
